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Sinteres posted:I don't think I really buy Tony being an underachieving gifted kid, so it feels like a retcon to me. He had a level of cunning to him, but he definitely didn't remind me of any former gifted kids I've known, and I've known some who've tried to downplay their intelligence to get along in different peer groups. Same. Tony Soprano never struck me as more intelligent than anyone else and certainly never came off as gifted or even above average for that matter. I don't know what they're going for with that except the angle of his mom maybe blocking his development and (limited) potential. Nothing in the show demonstrates him being above anything more than average to maybe slightly above average intelligence, and even then only in selected areas. I mean, he's cunning, manipulative and his sociopathic bent makes him effective sometimes doing what he does but... I dunno. More I think about it as I write this, Tony seems to come off as slightly below average smarts more than anything. Now I'm trying to think who was the smartest guy in the crew and I guess Carlo or Patsie. Sinteres posted:I've been thinking and I apologize for my use of fowl language in regards to yourself. You said some very hurtful things to me in regards to myself. But it is still no excuse to use the vile word that I used, of which I am sure you know that I'm talking about. Gifted
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Jul 3, 2021 00:52
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| # ? May 24, 2024 05:54 |
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Captain Teebs
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Jul 3, 2021 01:02
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reminder that the guy with the highest IQ ever recorded is a racist security guard in new mexico. poo poo has very little to do with how you actually seem/act. The show kinda agrees with this. Tony B is very smart but kills himself with his rage.
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Jul 3, 2021 01:15
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A lifetime of just getting what you want through violence or intimidation prob doesn't help.
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Jul 3, 2021 02:27
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Vasukhani posted:reminder that the guy with the highest IQ ever recorded is a racist security guard in new mexico. poo poo has very little to do with how you actually seem/act. The show kinda agrees with this. Tony B is very smart but kills himself with his rage. Nobody's saying Tony has average or low IQ because he does or believes dumb things--we all know very intelligent people are capable of being very stupid. I just never really saw him as a Mensa level intellect, and even if they were obviously in the show for comedic effect, the malapropisms are a big part of what makes it hard to buy.
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Jul 3, 2021 02:28
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Tony was definitely smart. Not on an intellectual level. But the man managed to keep his organization running an profitable even when new York, the fbi, and some of his own captains were trying to off him. And drat near every if not every mistake he makes in the show is purely the result of his hosed emotional state not a lack of intelligence.
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Jul 3, 2021 02:31
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Yeah he is relativly clever compared to his associates but he also has little intellectual curiosity and hardly any discipline. He could have been a normal mediocre guy in a office job, expect he would get bored with that quickly and get himself fired.
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Jul 3, 2021 02:49
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He grew up in a psycho mob household where his dad fired guns at his mom and he still went to college, he was obviously somewhat bright at one point. Not really surprising someone eventually ends up dumber and lazier at 40 after a lifetime of violence, drug abuse, etc. I clicked on the S1 episode where Tony gets shot at and noticed Bokeem Woodbine was in the thumbnail, as the rapper who wants to argue with Hesh. That's pretty cool he was in it
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Jul 3, 2021 04:01
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Sinteres posted:Nobody's saying Tony has average or low IQ because he does or believes dumb things--we all know very intelligent people are capable of being very stupid. I just never really saw him as a Mensa level intellect, and even if they were obviously in the show for comedic effect, the malapropisms are a big part of what makes it hard to buy. Revenge is like serving cold cuts I don't think anyone is really arguing that Tony is stupid. Just that he's hardly exeptional
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Jul 3, 2021 04:14
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Tony is an empath when it comes to people like him. He can usually get people to do what he wants because he's charismatic and understands human nature. This only applies to people like him (like people in his crew or city council members trying to scam a buck or whatever). He often makes a fool of himself when dealing with Melfi or Carm because he assumes they have the same mentality he does.
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Jul 3, 2021 06:21
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Melfi maybe, but Carm is Tony in a dress
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Jul 3, 2021 06:22
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Vasukhani posted:reminder that the guy with the highest IQ ever recorded is a racist security guard in new mexico. poo poo has very little to do with how you actually seem/act. The show kinda agrees with this. Tony B is very smart but kills himself with his rage. Also, I tried to look this up and the answer Google gave me was someone entirely different, could you elaborate on this?
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Jul 3, 2021 06:26
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Flesnolk posted:Also, I tried to look this up and the answer Google gave me was someone entirely different, could you elaborate on this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
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Jul 3, 2021 06:34
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Flesnolk posted:Melfi maybe, but Carm is Tony in a dress She lacks his short-sightedness. I don't know if he truly believes he can support himself and Carm forever or just doesn't care what happens after he dies, but I'm sure he thinks he has no responsibility to her if he does die.
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Jul 3, 2021 06:38
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quote:Langan's support of conspiracy theories, including the 9/11 Truther movement (Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU) and the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as his opposition to interracial relationships, have contributed to his gaining a following among members of the alt-right and others on the far right.[10][11] Journalists have described certain of Langan's Internet posts as containing "thinly veiled" antisemitism[10] and making antisemitic "dog whistles".[11] I'm legit surprised I've never heard of this guy before. What a prick.
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Jul 3, 2021 18:15
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Another Bill posted:I'm legit surprised I've never heard of this guy before. What a prick. Well, he must be right, because I've never heard of his totally rational and well thought-out theory of everything but I have heard of 9/11.
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Jul 3, 2021 18:56
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https://twitter.com/StevieVanZandt/status/1411485061904486400
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Jul 4, 2021 01:42
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Van Zandt's twitter is pretty good reading. Although I detest the platform, some people can really work it.
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Jul 5, 2021 23:16
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He wastes a little too much time shouting down dingbats but otherwise it's good
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Jul 6, 2021 01:44
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I love it when the hits go south in this show.
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Jul 6, 2021 04:01
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He's got the pose down: 
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Jul 6, 2021 15:44
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I'm rewatching on HBOMax and I just hit S3, E2 - Proshai, Livushka, and did they remaster the Livia scene? It seems markedly better and less weird than when I saw it initially. Though the dialogue is still bizarre and doesn't really make any sense. It really is too bad that we lost Nancy Marchand so early. I really wish we could have seen where they were planning on going with her. (Though I suppose they rolled her planned storylines into Janice and Junior)
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Jul 6, 2021 16:43
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you know, as strange as it sounds, I thought it worked well. People just randomly die sometimes in real life. It's unfortunate that we never saw that arch finish, and ofc that the actor die, but having a character just drop dead when the plot was clearly leading to a cruscendo added some strange realism.
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Jul 6, 2021 17:01
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Vasukhani posted:you know, as strange as it sounds, I thought it worked well. People just randomly die sometimes in real life. It's unfortunate that we never saw that arch finish, and ofc that the actor die, but having a character just drop dead when the plot was clearly leading to a cruscendo added some strange realism. Yeah absolutely, and the Sopranos was a show that held the typical structure of media in contempt - life very rarely gives you closure or satisfaction the way you want it to be. It's just a shame given how fantastic she was and how much she brought the show.
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Jul 6, 2021 18:29
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Vasukhani posted:you know, as strange as it sounds, I thought it worked well. People just randomly die sometimes in real life. It's unfortunate that we never saw that arch finish, and ofc that the actor die, but having a character just drop dead when the plot was clearly leading to a cruscendo added some strange realism. I second this. I also like how the show has a bunch of open threads and red herrings that never go anywhere, like cousin Brian getting nice suits from Tony and it becoming (IIRC) known to the FBI, but then nothing comes of it. EDIT: The scene where Tony finds out after just coming inside from doing something in the yard also struck me as very true-to-life.
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Jul 6, 2021 18:30
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Speaking of, I've always felt like Junior was slotted into some of Livia's storylines after the actress passing. The final scene between Tony and Junior is very good but I get the impression it was supposed to be Livia.
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Jul 6, 2021 18:57
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TheKingslayer posted:Speaking of, I've always felt like Junior was slotted into some of Livia's storylines after the actress passing. The final scene between Tony and Junior is very good but I get the impression it was supposed to be Livia. This reminds me that while Chianese of course played the part to perfection and they were riffing on actual things that had happened (bosses who were so old they'd started to get dementia) I kind of wish they'd kept him more involved on the mob side of things throughout the series. Strictly personal preference.
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Jul 6, 2021 19:10
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Mike N Eich posted:I'm rewatching on HBOMax and I just hit S3, E2 - Proshai, Livushka, and did they remaster the Livia scene? It seems markedly better and less weird than when I saw it initially. Though the dialogue is still bizarre and doesn't really make any sense. From what I remember the stolen airline tickets were going to be much more important instead of just dropped in a throwaway line. Tony would have had to spend a lot more time with her trying to get into her good graces so she wouldn't testify that he gave her stolen airline tickets. Fortunately(not really) she passed pretty early in the season so they were able work around it . Hard to think how they would would have fit that storyline in.
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Jul 6, 2021 19:36
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TheKingslayer posted:Speaking of, I've always felt like Junior was slotted into some of Livia's storylines after the actress passing. The final scene between Tony and Junior is very good but I get the impression it was supposed to be Livia. It works really well with Junior though, Tony had a lot of conflicted feelings about him but he was a much stronger parental figure than Livia. You can tell just how devastated Tony is when he walks away from Junior (presumably for the last time) in tears. The fact that Junior had some warmth and admiration for Tony, even if he once upon a time ordered a hit on him and literally shot him, is the difference. I'm pretty sure the entire dementia storyline was meant for Livia initially, and then slotted over to Junior. You can see it starting to emerge in season 2, where Livia is apparently completely ignorant of what she did to him in season 1 (though that could of course be an act).
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Jul 6, 2021 21:08
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Mike N Eich posted:It works really well with Junior though, Tony had a lot of conflicted feelings about him but he was a much stronger parental figure than Livia. You can tell just how devastated Tony is when he walks away from Junior (presumably for the last time) in tears. The fact that Junior had some warmth and admiration for Tony, even if he once upon a time ordered a hit on him and literally shot him, is the difference. Yeah it’s so hard to tell with her what was real and what wasn’t. But the fact that she almost burned her house down in season 1 (and I’m going to generously assume that she didn’t hit her best friend with a car on purpose) seemed to me to be the seeds of genuine diminished mental faculties, that was probably going to grow into more of a plot point throughout the show.
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Jul 6, 2021 21:31
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It's incredible how long it took for it to finally get through to Tony that Junior wasn't trying to kill him. It was very obvious, and he didn't figure it out because he was filled with spite. I think he's upset in his last meeting with Junior because all of his formative relationships are based on bitterness and spite, and with Junior's mind loving gone he has nothing to do with that spite anymore.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 21:58
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^^^ But he was though. Or did you mean in season 6?^^^ Junior was in on that hit in S1 full stop. TheKingslayer posted:Speaking of, I've always felt like Junior was slotted into some of Livia's storylines after the actress passing. The final scene between Tony and Junior is very good but I get the impression it was supposed to be Livia. Yeah, I could see the "don't you love me?" line being delivered in that context and being even more devastating than it already was. Also agree that the red herrings and dangling plot lines really make the show great. Has anyone ever compiled a list other than "what about the Russian?" Because there were a lot of instances where I made totally wrong predictions about poo poo that looked like it was going to lead somewhere.
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Jul 6, 2021 23:26
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Massive Genius vs. Hesh music rights lawsuit and counter suit never happened as far as we know.
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Jul 6, 2021 23:44
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Ralph Hurley posted:Massive Genius vs. Hesh music rights lawsuit and counter suit never happened as far as we know. I just watched that episode and it also felt like they were dropping hints at an infidelity storyline with Ade and Massive but it never materialized
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Jul 7, 2021 00:19
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TheKingslayer posted:I just watched that episode and it also felt like they were dropping hints at an infidelity storyline with Ade and Massive but it never materialized I dunno if I read quite that much into it; I figured Massive was just entertaining her by letting her lovely friends use the studio because he was trying to gently caress her. Which I guess is basically what you just said, but I never picked up any hints that the hookup would actually happen, it just explained why visiting day (meow!) managed to get a recording session with a professional studio (it's no denmark of course, but)
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Jul 7, 2021 00:30
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Ainsley McTree posted:I dunno if I read quite that much into it; I figured Massive was just entertaining her by letting her lovely friends use the studio because he was trying to gently caress her. Which I guess is basically what you just said, but I never picked up any hints that the hookup would actually happen, it just explained why visiting day (meow!) managed to get a recording session with a professional studio (it's no denmark of course, but) Oh yeah I don't think Ade would have went for it but I thought it would cause tension with Christopher. But it's realistic that way that Christopher might have been oblivious.
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Jul 7, 2021 01:00
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Mike N Eich posted:I'm rewatching on HBOMax and I just hit S3, E2 - Proshai, Livushka, and did they remaster the Livia scene? It seems markedly better and less weird than when I saw it initially. Though the dialogue is still bizarre and doesn't really make any sense. I just watched these scenes a minute ago and yeah, for whatever reason you can tell it's doctored footage but it's well done for the time.
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Jul 7, 2021 08:59
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TheKingslayer posted:I just watched these scenes a minute ago and yeah, for whatever reason you can tell it's doctored footage but it's well done for the time. "Look who calls!" "Actually, I'm standing here in front of you!"
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Jul 7, 2021 09:28
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BiggerBoat posted:Also agree that the red herrings and dangling plot lines really make the show great. Has anyone ever compiled a list other than "what about the Russian?" Because there were a lot of instances where I made totally wrong predictions about poo poo that looked like it was going to lead somewhere. Furio, whether or not Ralphie burned down the stable, what happened when Finn and Meadow finally broke up, what Carmela actually did with the $40k from the bird feed, what ultimately happened to David Scatino and family, same with Caitlin, etc. I always appreciated it because it's a lot like real life when you don't get answers or closure and sometimes people just fade away for whatever reason.
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Jul 7, 2021 12:32
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| # ? May 24, 2024 05:54 |
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I figure Furio just hosed off back to Italy. I can't imagine he'd face any consequences. The whole Furio saga illustrates the gap between who Tony wants to be and where he is. He brings in Furio because he'd like to have that kind of military discipline in his organization, but if Tony was part of the Ndrangheta or Camorra he'd be quickly identified as a liability and done away with.
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Jul 7, 2021 15:04
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